Authority of the Gods
by Avatarwriter.Natsumi
Summary: Kakashi and Obito have been sucked into the Kamui dimension for their final showdown. Two men go in, only one comes out. The question is: Which one?


**Naruto (C) Masashi Kishimoto  
Concept (c) Abz-J-Harding (Deviantart)**

**Authority of the Gods**

**Part 1**

Kakashi pressed his right hand against the gaping wound on the same side. Red seeped through his burnt fingers and trailed down his side, dyeing what's left of his vest and undershirt a healthy red. One of his lungs must have been punctured if the stabbing pain every time he trying to take a breath was any hint.

This wasn't good at all. Trapped within the Kamui dimension, there was no one around to heal his injuries. The only key to entering this place resided within Kakashi's and Obito's Sharingan eyes. And neither user had the strength or chakra to activate a portal.

His breath came out in wheezing gasps, trying to find the last bit of strength to haul himself to his feet. With a gargantuan effort, he forced himself to his knees. Bile and blood rose in his throat and despite a heroic effort, he could not force it back. Tearing off his mask, Kakashi had vomited the offensive coppery mix onto the grey platform which supported him. Something slipped and he felt cloth brushing past his ears. Kakashi's obsidian eye widened just a fraction when he watched his headband bounce next to his hand. Blood dripped from his brow and splattered on the reflective silver.

Kakashi saw his blurry reflection in the stamped metal. Feebly, he noted all the scratches and dents, chuckling at how dirty the thing had become in just a few days of fighting.

The last time he had been in such a bad way was against Pain. He gritted his teeth against the spikes of pain that shot through his left thigh – the shuriken wound from Obito's first savage assault.

"Look at you..!" He heard Obito's voice, pained and raging. "Why are you so damn persistent?"

Kakashi raised his head. Obito was in not better shape either. His right arm hung limply from his shoulder socket with only a few tendrils of inhuman matter joining it to the rest of his body.

"You really believe in Naruto _that_ much?" The Uchiha bellowed, his scarred face scrunching into a scowl. Kakashi sucked in a breath of air and choked on another round of bloody froth rising in his throat. His internal damage must have been far more severe than he originally estimated. Spending a day and a night fighting an all out battle against reincarnated Mist Swordsmen, and then immediately jumping into a battlefield with six of the dead jinchuriki in their semi-bestial forms?

The whole affair was far more damaging than Kakashi had ever realised. On top of that, the resurrection of the fabled Monster – the Ten Tails. Even with the massive chakra injection granted by the Nine Tails, the limited regenerative capabilities it provided vanished a few seconds after Kakashi's chakra network had absorbed it. It took its toil physically and psychologically.

"Of course I do..." Kakashi hacked so loudly and painfully hard, it felt like a lung was coming up. More bloody bile escaped his lips.

Kakashi mustered all the strength he had left and with one last effort to force himself to his feet.

"His dream is simply naivety." Obito argued half-heartedly. "True peace in the world can't exist..." He wanted to say 'without the Moon's Eye Plan', but something stopped him. He couldn't place what.

"We've both seen war," Kakashi panted, weakly brushing the blood off his chin. "I don't know if any kind of peace can be obtained, but Naruto believes he can make it happen, and as his teacher, it's my duty to believe in him and keep faith."

"That's something the old you would never say." Obito noted quietly.

"It's something that trash like me had to learn the hard way."

"Fools love a fool..." The Uchiha muttered, almost to himself.

The Uchiha studied him with his piercing Sharingan before making a mental assessment of his own wounds. His arm was useless, and a multitude of his internal organs have been ruptured. A tendon in his ankle had snapped and his jaw was certainly cracked. A stream of blood flowed freely down the left of his face. A gaping hole in his side from a lightning infused kunai bleed profusely. It was close to a lethal area, and in a few minutes, he'd probably bleed to death. He wasn't sure if that was amusing or pathetic.

The idea that such a plain injury could be his downfall was laughable. Obito's eye narrowed at the bitter realisation that both of them were going to die at this rate. He had never been particularly intent on killing his former comrade.

The truth was, Obito had wished that Kakashi would join him, and offered accordingly – knowing full well that The Hatake had suffered similar great pains in his own life. But if Obito died here, then everything he had worked for and endured – the training, the conditioning, killing Minato sensei and his wife – it would have all been for nothing. Memories of their last mission together floated to the forefront of his mind.

_Now I will definitely protect my comrades!_ Obito remembered his thirteen year old deceleration upon awakening his sharingan for the first time. It awakened to protect his comrades, to protect Kakashi. No matter how much Obito may have hated reality as it stood; there was nothing he could do to erase that.

With a low growl, he closed his eye resigned.

"It can't be helped. There's no way I can restore us both..." Obito forced through his clogged throat, staring into at Kakashi's obsidian eye. "My chakra supply is too depleted."

"What do you mean?" Kakashi panted, wearily regarding his enemy. "'Restore us both'?" Despite himself, the Copy Ninja couldn't keep the spark of hope igniting in his chest. Perhaps his former friend had finally begun to see reason, naive as that hope was.

"Madara is still around and he's still a threat, but given both of our physical conditions, there's no chance that we'd be able to get out of this dimension alive, let alone stop Madara." Obito said, spitting a mouthful of blood to the side.

"What are you suggesting?" Kakashi asked, brows furrowing slightly. Obito considered his next words carefully; he exhaled quickly and forced the Rinnegan in his left eye open.

"The Rinnegan grants tremendous power, and it's not just limited to destructive capability. Although it was a pale imitation to the Sage's power - you've experience both sides of this eye's power first hand when Nagato attacked the Leaf." Obito said. "But to restore a life requires the sacrifice of another. That is the iron clad rule of reanimation jutsu."

Kakashi was confused, but still he spoke out. "We can't escape this realm without any chakra, but I refuse to let my friend sacrifice his life. Not after regaining his senses."

"I haven't 'regained' anything," Obito told him fiercely, crushing the hope that he'll redeem himself once and for all. "I wanted and still want to create a world without conflict. I want this useless reality gone, and create one where heroes needn't sacrifice their lives. But Madara just wants to rule the world completely. Be the king of his own little hill."

Kakashi's open eye narrowed slightly at the comment, but he said nothing. Obito straightened his back, as much as he could with his injuries and stared up into the black sky. "Madara wanted to become the Ten Tail's Jinchuriki, but you need a living body to seal a beast into. To obtain that, he needs me to resurrect completely him using the Gedo: Heavenly Samsara technique."

Suspicion oozed in Kakashi's tone. Obito may have seemingly stopped in his attack, but this man was the person who manipulated Sasuke and world events. He instigated a war simply to get his hands on Naruto – and no matter how willing he may seem to work together now, Kakashi still searched under his words for an ulterior motive. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I intended to supplant Madara's plans by becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki myself," Obito's features became grim, "Or rather – I _had_ intended. In doing so, I'd have access to boundless power. With the Ten-Tails, I would have crushed Madara's resurrected body and created my ideal world."

Kakashi felt his left leg give out under his weight and collapsed to his knees again, biting back a cry of pain. His breath came out in rapid gasps; he could feel the last dregs of his chakra start to slip away. There was nothing else he could do beyond trying to fish for information. "And now?"

"And now, I'm literally falling to pieces." Obito's scarred lip twitched up into a dark smirk. "We both are." He added in a bout of dark humour, gesturing vaguely to Kakashi's broken body.

"What are you going to do? Just what are you trying to do now?"

"As I said, my chakra is virtually drained, and you barely have enough to keep that eye of yours open. Not to mention we're both bleeding out. Even with the power of this eye, there's no way I can restore our chakras. But this is another method."

"Something tells me that this 'other method' isn't without cost."

"We could both bleed out and rot in this dimension for all eternity if that's what you want?" Obito offered, half-seriously. "I'm truly not fussed either way."

That option wasn't on the table. Kakashi swallowed, "What is this 'other method'?"

"It would take time to explain. More time than either of us has left. Needless to say, once I activate this technique, there's no going back." Obito said, turning his attention to his limp right arm and gritting his teeth in concentration, trying to will the limb back into its socket.

His grafted flesh responded feebly to his thoughts. The plant matter seemed to twitch to life of its own accord, slowly but steadily ascending closer to his shoulder joint. Obito then mentally instructed the matter to cease all further action when movement was restored to his right arm. Not a lot, but regained enough fine motor control to form seals – and that was enough.

"In truth, there's only a roughly five percent chance I'll be able to pull this off. And even then, I've no idea what the results will be."

"What will this jutsu cost?" Kakashi asked again.

"What are you willing to give to protect your precious student?"

"Everything." He answered unhesitatingly.

"Good." Obito carefully weaved together a complex series of signs - far slower than his usual incomprehensible burl given his wretched state. "That's exactly what it'll take."

* * *

Naruto allowed himself a victorious grin when Sasuke's Amaterasu flames ignited his Rasen-Shuriken as it struck, consuming the Ten-Tail's back like a raging black inferno.

"Strike!" Gamakichi shouted triumphantly, blocking another volley of projectiles from the human-sized clones. The giant toad landed next to Sasuke's anaconda.

"Burn it to the ground." Sasuke had declared, glaring at the Ten-Tail's main body while his Susano'o jutsu faded from existence. His black and red eyes took note of the two giant, legless clones crawling towards the four of them.

"Lord Sasuke!" Aoda hissed, Sasuke's Susano'o activated once more, two more flame arrows speared through those clones, although five more took their places. This time, Gamakichi slashed two into halves and leapt away as the other three threw lances at him. With tanto in hand, the giant toad cleaved the weapons in half.

"Gamakichi! Can you keep it up?!" Naruto shouted over the crashing of metal, indistinctive moans and roars of their opponents. The toad grunted in reply.

"I don't have a choice really!"

"Just keep 'em occupied!" Naruto told him quickly, hands hovering in front of his chest – already molding the chakra for a second massive rasengan. "I'll get another Rasen-Shuriken ready to take the heat off!"

"Naruto! Above!" Sasuke's quick reflexes and sharp eyes caught the swarm of winged clones bursting from the Ten-Tails and headed straight for him. "Aoda! Get over there; we're going to catch them."

"Yes Lord Sasuke!" The snake answered dutifully, slithering through the clones. Avoiding any attacks from the sluggish, misshapen oafs was child's play, given Aoda's natural agility. Sasuke turned his gaze upward and grunted. "What of the Main Body?"

Sasuke felt his faithful some leap over a irregular edge in the rubble and had to crotch against Aoda's scaly head. "I can't defeat it on my own. I'll need everyone's help now move!" He watched the Ten Tails seething in agony in the corner of his eye, the behemoth wriggled and tore furiously at the giant seals restraining it, yet they remained strong. "Let the Amateratsu consume it."

"Understood." Aoda replied.

"Susano'o!" Sasuke shouted, bringing his chakra made guardian to attention. Like a puppeteer, he launched he swung his arms outwards, the purple creation spawned a double-bladed flame sword in its hand. It spun like a pinwheel, shredding the clones left and right before it folded into another set of arrows.

"Naruto! The Shuriken!" Gamakichi yelled. Naruto desperately weaved his chakra together. There wasn't enough time to make a second proper shuriken; he held his stand Rasengan between his hands.

"I don't have enough time!" With frustration, Naruto used his chakra arms to push the Rasengan towards the nearest bat-looking clone. Another swooped in behind, spikes forming on the thing membranes of its wings.

"Gamakichi! Behind us!"

"I won't make it in time!" Gamakichi said hopelessly, trying to turn and face his foe.

"Lord Sasuke!" Aoda called for his master's attention. Sasuke gritted his teeth, mentally commanding his Susano'o to slash at more of the clones. Unfortunately the jutsu simply couldn't keep up with the numbers. Around Naruto, Sasuke's Sharingan watched as space was about to distort into a strange spiral. He growled angrily. This jutsu belonged to that masked Madara.

"Naruto! Above you!"

"Naruto!" Minato cried out, unable to do anything about his son's situation. He had to focus his energies on maintaining the barrier, and even if he had the hands free to produce a clone he wouldn't be able to save both of Naruto's young friends either.

He gritted his teeth, about to break his hold on the technique.

"Fourth! Focus on the sealing!" The Lord Second's tone shouted, watching the square barrier beginning to weaken and fizz.

Minato closed his eyes, angered and frustrated with himself. He couldn't abandon his fellow Kages now, or risk the barrier failing. "I'm sorry Kushina...!" He cursed himself, focusing his chakras back into the jutsu – resolidifying its walls.

Minato watched, biting his lip. All he could do was watch helplessly as his only child was trapped in a deadlock between those large flying creatures. When the space around Naruto started to wrap and distort, all he could do was watch and have faith that his son was powerful enough to avoid this lastest attack. That jutsu belonged to the same masked man that destroyed half the Leaf, Minato only hoped that Naruto would defeat him as he had always intended.

Just as a foe was about to turn Naruto and his summon into a pin cushion, he disappeared into a spiral abyss. Then the same phenomenon appeared around Naruto's friend and his anaconda, whose purple chakra guardian couldn't keep up with the damage the clones were throwing out. In an instant, both Sasuke and his snake were sucked into that void.

"Naruto!"

* * *

"Where are we?" Gamakichi asked, examining their new surroundings. It was a strange realm, the sky was completely black in colour, though everything could be seen clearly without the aid of a light source. The ground they were standing on, if it could be called 'ground' were a series of white-grey platforms of various levels, going on as far as the eye can see.

"That Obito guy sucked us into this place." Naruto explained, taking a moment to catch his breath. "Kakashi-sensei's jutsu is linked to here as well. They used it to get here before the Ten Tails made that massive crater."

"Then they should still be here?" Gamakichi said, looking around. "Naruto look there, to the right."

Naruto turned to the direction his summon indicated and finally realised the two residual chakras left there. The terrain over there was ruined completely, no longer the symmetrical white square terrain. They had been reduced to jagged peaks, cracked rubble with burns, slash marks and broken blades. Of course, there was something else there too. In a flat plain fairly undamaged area, roughly twenty-five feet across, was a large black array the likes of which Naruto had never seen before. Even in all the tedious scrolls the Pervy sage made him study when they were travelling.

"That's where they fought?" Gamakichi said, bounding over to the battlefield.

"It seems like it." Naruto closed his eyes and centred his energies. He could detect the different chakras, one belonging to Kakashi and the other belonged to that Obito guy.

"That's-" Gamakichi was about to speak, but he was interrupted by a huge sound - A snake hissing aggressively. A point in space folding into itself like a black hole and Sasuke's snake dropped out, slithering straight towards Gamakichi.

"That's Sasuke."

"Aoda!" The beast came to a screeching halt, right up in Gamakichi's face. Sasuke's Susano'o slowly phasing out of existence once more as Aoda's head raised high enough for both summoners to see eye to eye.

"I see he left you unharmed." Sasuke noted, looking his one-time comrade over.

"Madara or Obito or whatever the hell he's calling himself, he needs Kurama." Naruto threw his hands up. "Or he did. With the Ten Tails running loose, I don't know what he needs anymore."

"Kurama?" Sasuke questioned to himself, noting Naruto's vague gesture to himself. That must have referred to the nine-tails then. The Uchiha looked around. "I've been here before. To my knowledge, the only way out is through – what was his real name? Obito?"

"Yeah. He was an old teammate of Kakashi-sensei's. Did you know him?"

"No." Sasuke replied, the complex runic pattern had taken his interest. "I've never known any Uchiha by that name. What is that?"

"I dunno, it was there when I was teleported here." Naruto explained, closing his eyes and engaging his senses again.

"Its only been created recently." Sasuke said, seeing the residual chakra within the markings. However, some of the black patterns didn't match the flow of chakra he saw. "Aoda, take me closer." He instructed and his summon dutifully obeyed without complaint.

"You heard him, Gamakichi." Naruto said, reluctantly.

Gamakichi grumbled, but followed the snake summon. "Alright kid."

"Its been activated too." Sasuke explained, narrowing his gaze. The powers within the array were so fresh it was practically glowing. Not to mention the level of complexity – it far surpassed any of those experiments he witnessed Orochimaru and Kabuto conduct. It was almost beautiful in a strange way.

_This can't be!_ Naruto heard Kurama's guttural whisper; the Jinchuriki felt the disbelief and a little horror from the beast through their mental link. _Naruto – switch with me._

Naruto did as the beast instructed. His eyes took on the signature red colouring and pupils became slitted, that indicating that Kurama now controlled the human form. "Listen to me, Uchiha kid."

"Nine Tails."

"_This jutsu formula was used by the Sage of Sixth Paths_!"

"That old story again?" Sasuke said wearily, Madara – or rather, Obito as Naruto had called him - told him about the Sage in vague detail while telling him of Itachi's true nature. "How do you know this?"

"_This jutsu is the catalyst that allowed the Sage to create the Tailed Beasts_."

"That's exactly right," Naruto and Sasuke both jumped to the offensive, Naruto's chakra hands already spinning his chakra into a Rasengan while Sasuke readied his chokuto and ran Chidori through the blade. "The Sage used it to make the Tailed beasts."

Space folded once more, but this time it was just a small opening and a figure spawned from the centre. He landed in a slightly crouched before straightening, giving both young ninja a good look. "And that seal was used to make me."

It was strange. His hair was spiky, but split down the middle, the right half was short, more uniform and black – the left side was longer, swept to the left and familiar silver. A large-spiral like scar - nearly identical to Obito's stretched over the entire right side of his face. However, it was far less pronounced than before as if something had partially regenerated it. His left eye was bisected by a thin vertical scar. He was wearing the same lilac coloured robe as Obito had been, but underneath was a standard Leaf Combat uniform.

"Kakashi!?" Naruto spat, wrestling control away from Kurama, despite the latter's frustrated protest.

The figure's curled up into a crooked smirk, in Kakashi's voice he answered."Close – but not quite."

* * *

To be continued.

**Edot: Apologies for that stupid and quite embarassing spelling error. Moral of this story? Don't Beta-Read then submit when its 2am in the morning. Hehe.**


End file.
